The Basics
Email Invites
When you send an email invite from Groundwork, each player/parent receives an email with a private signup link just for them. They can only signup for that team and the payments that you've specified ahead of time.
To send an email invite, you add the player to the team and provide the parent's email address.
Link Signup
With link signup you share a link that is specific to your Groundwork account, but not to any particular team/program with your account. You can put this on your website, in an email, or wherever works for you. Parents follow the link and choose the team/program they want to signup for from a drop-down list. You can control what appears here by enabling/disabling link signup for specific teams. Checkout our full guide on link signup.
The Pros and Cons
Email Invitations | Link Signup | |
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A bit of both (advanced)
You can actually have players/parents signup both ways.
The most common reason for doing this is if you want most players to signup using the link but you want to add some players individually to customize their payments and send them a private invitation.
Alternatively, you could add all the players to the team ahead of time and turn on link signup. If the parent follows the link signup and uses the same email address you provided for that player, we'll link the account to that player. If they use a different email, we'll add a new player to the team.
When should I use Link Signup?
We suggest using link signup for the following:
- Tryouts
- Camps and clinics
- Lessons
- Teams with open signups
Example 1: Tryouts
Create a team that players are trying out for and add a tryout fee. Parents can register to tryout using the signup link and pay the fee online. When tryouts are over and you know who is on the team, you can remove the players that didn't make the cut. You can rename the team. You can also edit the payment schedule to include the current season's registration and team fees. The upshot is that since parents have already signed up, all they need to do is approve the new payments, not signup again.
Example 2: Camps and clinics
Most of the time camps and clinics are open to the public to sign up for. Create a team and name it as a camp. Set the payments and then enable link signup. Parents can then use the link to signup and pay.